


Grauntie Ford's Portal Adventures

by MaryPSue



Series: Grauntie Ford [7]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Dissociation, Dragons, Dysphoria, Ford Pines' Portal Adventures, Gen, Trans Female Character, like hugging it out but with less hugging, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 03:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15654789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: Short fic in the Grauntie Ford AU. Mostly involving interdimensional shenanigans.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't crosspost these from tumblr for one reason and one reason only: I could not come up with a title. This is not a great title, but...here they are.

It sweeps over her unexpectedly, in the middle of a crowded marketplace, at the intersection of a thousand worlds. A crush of warm (and cold) bodies pinned together in one small space, every individual voice raised and building into a tower of cacophony, the heat overwhelming, the fug of scent even more so, unfamiliar and with an odd sharp note but still instantly recognisable as the odour of too many people in one place. Someone presses up against Ford, shoved into her by the ebb and flow of the living tide, knocks her into the stall of the trader she’s negotiating (all right, arguing) with, more hampered than aided by her translator. For an instant, the edge of the stall digging into her hip is a ground wire, an anchor, pinning her down from thought and word and sensation into, as Shakespeare would have it, too solid flesh.

Panic rises, burning the back of her throat.

The merchant Ford’s been talking to continues right on haggling, apparently oblivious to the way Ford’s breathing has quickened, the way her gaze turns away, the hand that comes up to clench in the thick, soft fabric of her oversized scarf (nearly as good out here, she’s found, as a towel). The words blur into one another, the rise and fall of the merchant’s voice washing over Ford without touching her, fading into the background noise of the market. She can barely hear it over the hammering of her own heart.

Her own heart. That’s a fine joke. She barely recognises its beating anymore. Barely recognises any of this body she’s anchored in. 

The world narrows to four limbs, eyes, the gurgle of hidden organs packed away under flesh and bone. Ford feels every minuscule movement, every slight shift, with a staggering solid immediacy, and everything about it is  _wrong wrong wrong_. It feels as though she’s burning through her layers of bulky, protective clothing, as though she’s been sealed into a clumsy, stiff diving suit, shackled into malformed human physicality. The image - the  _illusion_  of self that she had so carefully cultivated in the corridors of her own mind, the concept of herself as this lean, powerful woman whose most marked attributes are an unusual number of fingers and a shapely pair of long legs, is shattered by the abrupt reminder of the physical reality of who, of what she is. And she can’t so much as dream herself out of it - every breath pulls in with it the knowledge of how bound she is, how limited. It feels as though - as though - like -

It feels like the first time she was possessed.

Panic flutters in time with her heartbeat.

It feels like the first time she fell back into herself, as she’s curled into herself now. Like the first time she felt what it was like to drift, untethered from the confining, defining tyranny of form, only to be brought harshly back to herself when - when Bill, she can think his name, it won’t summon him now - had finished with her body. There had been relief, then, though, mingled with the screaming sensation of wrongness left behind by the exiting -  _don’t say muse, don’t say muse_  - demon, relief and a kind of wonder at how much of her physicality she had taken for granted.

There is nothing like that now. There is only the wrongness, and the itching desire, growing by the second, to crawl out of her own inadequate, inaccurate skin.

Ford white-knuckles six fingers in the scarf at her throat, feeling the scrape of the rough knit of her gloves, the soft give of the scarf under her fingers, the tension of the fabric of both scarf and gloves as she balls the hand into a fist. She leans heavily against the trader’s stall with the other hand, the edge burning into the heel of her palm as it takes her weight.

She concentrates on her breathing.

Not the way  _he_  had taught her. Not quite. Ford draws a breath in, holds it in her lungs, feeling her chest expand, feeling the pulse building there the longer she holds her breath. Tries to let the stab of frenzy at the thought of her chest pass through her, breathes out.

It’s her. Her body, for better or for worse, and she’s the only one inside it. All this mentally hammering on the walls screaming to be let out is doing nothing. It’s a Sisyphean task, thankless, but Ford draws in another breath and tries to concentrate instead on naming and listing the biological processes occurring within her regardless of how she feels about them or how much attention she pays them. Breath comes in, oxygen transfers from the bronchioles to the capillaries, oxygenated blood is carried to the heart…

The body works, with or without her input, millions of years of variations and chance coming together to build something determined to keep her alive. Certainly it’s imperfect, at least for her, but no matter what it might feel like right now, it’s on her side. Even if it does suffocate her at times like this, it’s always been there for her, always protected and supported her.

And it’s hers. Only hers. Bill Cipher can’t touch her anymore. Can’t take this from her ever again.

Panic presses at her as the crowd does, buffeting against her but, for the moment, held at bay. The constant pulse of wrongness doesn’t ebb, doesn’t dim, but Ford feels as though perhaps she can work through it, now. She opens her eyes, keeps breathing.

The merchant has stopped talking, and is staring at her oddly - at least, she thinks it’s oddly, though it’s difficult to read facial expressions on a creature that appears to be mostly composed of gelatinous ooze over a rough skeletal framework. Ford smiles, lips closed over her teeth (she’d learned the hard way that too many cultures see bared teeth as threatening, first and foremost) and straightens up from her position leaning heavily against the stall.

The merchant says something. It comes through Ford’s translator in a heavy Brooklyn accent, for whatever reason. “You still want anything?”

“Thank you, no,” Ford says, stepping away with a small, short wave. Either the merchant will hail her back with a fantastic offer or she’s walking away from overpriced garbage. Either way, she’s more than finished with the market for today.


	2. Chapter 2

Straight razors had worked for hundreds, thousands of people for centuries, Ford tried to remind herself, taking in the foot-long blade she’d been carrying since that group of bandits had tried to jump her back when she’d first crossed into this dimension and had quickly learned the meaning of the word “laser”. This was the same principle, only…scaled up. Nothing to worry about. She’d take it slowly, she’d be careful, she wouldn’t accidentally slit her own throat. Probably.

She leaned in towards the flat gold platter she’d chosen as a mirror, grimacing at the shaggy, greyish-reddish scruff that had started to overtake her face. The platter didn’t make a perfect mirror, it had too many imperfections for that, making her face bubble and warp. This wasn’t going to be easy.

It was going to be worth it, though. When her face wasn’t a damn jungle anymore and people stopped calling her ‘sir’ on the highway (though the few who’d called her by the honorific she’d since learned meant ‘esteemed sorcerer/scholar of magics’, though it assumed masculinity, did still make her smile) and she didn’t have the itching desire to claw her own skin off quite so badly. A sword this close to her face was a small price to -

In the reflection from the gold platter, Ford caught a shiver of movement. She spun, but just too slow. The dragon’s mouth was already open, and before she could bring her sword up, a gout of flame burst from its maw.

Ford opened her eyes. Her face felt…badly sunburned, but not much worse, and she was fairly certain she’d lost her eyebrows. The dragon snapped its mouth shut, looking smug, and trotted past Ford to snap the platter she’d been using as a mirror in its little jaws. The dragon almost vanished behind the platter, which was bigger around then the dragon was long, from its nose to the tip of its tail, which wagged with obvious pride. Despite the scorched feeling that was intensifying along her jaw and down her neck, Ford couldn’t help but smile. “All right, little guy. Enjoy the addition to your hoard.”

The burning really was getting uncomfortable, though, and she raised a hand to pat out the flames still crackling merrily in her beard - and stopped. There was a large patch, right on her chin, that despite being slightly sooty was smoother than it had been since - actually, Ford couldn’t remember when.

Well. It certainly couldn’t be any more dangerous than attempting to shave one’s own top lip with a broadsword.

(She got a few odd looks walking around with half her beard gone and the other half on fire for the time it took to burn down, but the 'esteemed sorcerer/scholar of magics’ honorific came her way that much more often.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a response to a minific that was sent to me anonymously. There are a few fics and headcanons like this on my tumblr under the[ #grauntie ford](https://marypsue.tumblr.com/tagged/grauntie-ford) tag - I didn't feel like I should crosspost them here, since I didn't write them, but they are excellent, and if you like this AU, I strongly suggest you check them out!

There are very few mirrors, here. She only sees herself in fragments, when treating an injury, testing a new invention, battling the heat of a desert dimension, bluffing on the strength of Bill’s brand. Maybe it’s better this way. Nothing to dwell on, to pick apart, to be overwhelmed by. On the unfortunately rare occasions Ford gets a chance to bathe, it isn’t only caution that makes her hurry through it.

It’s almost surprising, then, when one day she strips off her jacket and sweater to bandage up a gash from an errant claw (she’d only been trying to take a little toenail clipping from the war-hog, there was absolutely no need for it to react so aggressively) and doesn’t quite recognise the person underneath. Neither of the Pines twins had ever been exactly slender, but Stanley had always been the strong one, solid muscle under a firm layer of padding. Maybe it’s hunger as much as anything that’s whittled Ford away like this, but she thinks she likes it. Likes being able to see the strength, the resilience she’s built. Likes having a visible waist. It feels a little like she’s emerging from underneath her own skin.

She’s mostly held back, before this, when other travelers or scavengers or interdimensional outlaws had found their way into her orbit. Nobody really asks about gender - nobody really asks about anything personally identifying, for fear of being asked themselves - but Ford had never been brave enough to volunteer, a quiet certainty that she’d somehow be seen through, exposed as an imposter, always choking back the words.

It still hovers at the back of her throat when her newest companion asks, but she swallows it down with a mouthful of whatever the stranger is carrying in their canteen (hopefully nothing that’ll do too much harm to her digestive system) and blurts, “I’m a woman.”

The stranger nods, the universal nod of someone who has no idea what their conversational partner is talking about, and says something that Ford’s third- or fourth-hand universal translator doesn’t even bother to try interpreting, and reaches out to take the canteen back. They don’t exclaim that that can’t be possible, they’re very familiar with Earth’s binary gender system and Ford’s physical characteristics clearly align her with the other one. Bill doesn’t appear to hover and gloat. Filbrick Pines does not materialise from behind a rock to start calling Ford a disgusting deviant.

Ford takes a breath, and another, and lets the tension seep out of her and dissipate into the purplish air.


	4. Chapter 4

The world had changed.

Well, of course the world had changed. Thirty years, Ford had lost, half of her life disappeared into the maw of her own creation, while the world spun on without her. And she herself had changed - so much, so, so much, repeated like a mantra, like a prayer - in the years she’d been gone.

But somehow she’d never expected everything she’d left behind to have changed as well.

Ford had never really expected that she wouldn’t find her way back. She’d faced the fear a few times, in darker moments, but ultimately she’d never really believed she’d die without seeing her home again. Perhaps it was too many hours locked in the library, too many narratively satisfying fantasy endings. Perhaps it was the sick certainty that her old friend wouldn’t let her get away so easily. Perhaps it was only plain old bullheadedness. Whatever the reason, she’d been ready for the day when the world ripped open a few feet from her nose. Ready for the day when everything turned inside out and, for the first time in thirty long years, she saw her home.

She’d been ready, despite the way her heart had been jackhammering in her throat, despite the underwater roaring in her ears, for the sight of her brother’s face.

(Somehow, in her imagination, no matter how long she knew or suspected it had been, that face had always been the one she’d seen in the last moments before a closing ring of white light had stolen it from her view.)

And she’d been ready for Stanley to open his mouth and tell the children (and she hadn’t been ready for that, hadn’t ever imagined a scenario in which there was an audience of two children and some sort of…man-child for this reunion) that she was his brother. She’d been ready, she’d been prepared, she’d been bracing herself since Bill Cipher had forced her to meet her mirror image’s eyes - but it had still landed like a physical blow.

So Ford had returned it.

It was not her proudest moment, though she’d never admit it to another living soul. But - it had been a long, long three decades.

She’d been prepared for Stanley to fight back, to take a swing at her in response, to say something barbed, cutting, to remind her why she’d spent so many years hating him. She’d been prepared for resistance when she corrected him ( _not your_ brother _, not anymore_ ).

She hadn’t been prepared for him to accept it.

She hadn’t been prepared for Stanley to just take the punch, like he knew he deserved it, hadn’t been prepared for him to meet her revelation with a gruff, “well, that explains a lot”. Ford had braced herself for the backlash for so long, steeled herself against every possible rejection, rehearsed so many brilliant arguments and scintillating comebacks in her mind, that it was almost a disappointment when Stanley didn’t react. (And there was a tiny part of her that envied him that, that something that had nearly shattered her world, that had so shaped her and changed her, could be as simple for him as correcting a misspoken pronoun.)

And she  _really_ hadn’t been prepared for the children. Hadn’t been ready for the girl to rush up, fearless, delighted, forcing Ford to abruptly check her automatic response of reaching for one of the many weapons hidden on her person. Hadn’t been ready for the way the boy looked at her, wide-eyed in awe, and just when she was starting to feel like she was on exhibit again, to burst into a flurry of frantic, excited questions about her journals. Hadn’t been ready for the realisation that she’d missed an entire generation of her family.

She hadn’t been prepared. She was home, just like she’d always known she would be, just as she’d planned and prepared and expected, right there in the middle of the reunion she’d been dreaming about and dreading for the last three decades. 

And Ford had never felt more lost in her life.


	5. Chapter 5

“So when’d you figure it out?”

Ford started at the voice, only to relax and shuffle over to make room on the couch on the porch when she saw that it was Stanley. “That I was being tricked into bringing about the end of the world? Actually, it was Fiddleford who -”

“Not that.”

Ford let out a sigh, leaning forward and clasping her hands in front of her. “It wasn’t long after I started work on the portal.”

Stan’s eyebrows rose as he collapsed on the couch beside her. “You didn’t say anything when I - while I was here.”

“Well, we had bigger problems at the time, didn’t we?” Ford turned away, back towards the woods. “And I didn’t want to believe it then. I didn’t want…didn’t want to give Bill any more of myself.”

“Wait, that thing you were warding the house against? What’s he got to do with anything?” Stan asked, and Ford’s laugh sounded mirthless and cold to her own ears.

“Bill has everything to do with everything. He’s worked his tentacles into every aspect of my life. Sometimes I think that if he hadn’t existed, I would have had to invent him.” She breathed out one last laugh, breathed in the quiet and the faint hint of impending autumn on the air. “But in this specific case, he was the one who led me to understand that I wasn’t a man.”

Stan nodded to himself, looking out off the porch and into the woods himself. “So was this…have you always…?” He cleared his throat, like the words were sticking somewhere before they could reach his mouth. “Look, I know Dipper and Mabel are always on me about this ‘tact’ junk, but -”

“Just ask the question, Stanley.”

“Were you always a girl? Or - I dunno, I just -” He ran a hand through his hair, grey with age and stress, and shrugged. “Guess what I’m really wondering is if I shoulda known sooner.”

Ford resisted the urge to meet Stanley’s eyes. When she thought she could trust her voice again, she said, “Believe me, for the last thirty years I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.”

“What? Hey, you’re not allowed to not have all the answers, nerd,” Stan teased, and the playful nudge he gave Ford’s shoulder dragged a reluctant smile to her face. “Seriously, you don’t even know?”

“I told you, the realisation came late,” Ford sighed. “And, again, because of Bill.”

“Yeah? So what? What’s the big deal with this ‘Bill’ guy, anyway?” Ford still didn’t look over, but she could imagine the smile that grew across Stan’s face as he said, “Ex-boyfriend?”

“Try 'vicious, sadistic demon with absolute power over the mind and bent on the destruction of the universe as we know it’.”

The teasing note had vanished from Stan’s voice when he said, “Oh.”

“ 'Oh’ is right. Where that menace is concerned, no thought or emotion can be trusted.” Ford looked down at her clasped hands, twelve interlaced fingers. “I can trace the feeling of - not quite fitting - as far back as I can remember, but…as you know, I’ve had an abundance of explanations to choose from.”

There was silence from the other end of the couch for a few long, drawn-out seconds, before Stan breathed, “Well, shit.”

Ford nodded, wordlessly.

She was just starting to consider getting up and heading back inside when Stan said, “Yanno, for the longest time I used to wonder if I woulda turned to a life of crime if Dad hadn’t kicked me out. If I was forced into it, or if I was just plain bad.”

Ford straightened up, looking over at her twin. “What did you do?”

Stan let out a snort. “Stopped wondering.”

“Stanley.”

Stan slid down in his seat, crossing one ankle over the other and tucking both hands behind his head. “Hey, it’s true. Either way, I still got the criminal record.” He grinned, leaning over closer to Ford. “Well, technically  _you_  got the criminal record. And Steve Pinington, and a buncha other guys who don’t exist. Anyway. You catch my drift.”

“Poorly as the example was worded…I think I do,” Ford agreed, with a small smile of her own. 

The faint rumble of a passing logging truck carried through the trees, underlining the squirrel- and raven-chatter that filled the surrounding woods.

Stan stretched, yawning enormously before he pushed himself to his feet. “Well, I haven’t heard either of the kids scream in a while, better go make sure they’re still alive.” He paused a moment, cracking his back with a noise like gunfire before looking down at Ford. “You coming in, or d'you wanna mope around out here a little longer?”

Ford looked out at the trees one last time, before levering herself up off the sofa as well. “No, I…think I’ve done quite enough moping for one night.”


End file.
